Michel Henry was, fundamentally, neither a thinker of the Krisis, nor a philosopher of “critical” thought. In his Barbarism, however, and his two volumes on Marx, Henry criticized forcefully the culture of his time and place. Culture, Henry suggests, has brought about an over-turning that has obscured life, its inner essence. Henry’s phenomenology, which opposes itself explicitly to this over-turning, strives to grasp, and to re-turn thought again, to that which, in his view, has been concealed. This doubled turn—an over-turning (...) of an over-turning, advanced in order to restore what modern thought has subtracted, i.e., life—represents the most fundamental, genuinely, ‘critical’ aspect of Henry’s philosophy. The question here, then, is to see whether and how Henry’s phenomenological proposal can regain what has been forgotten and concealed, and how this subtracted element can be returned again to thought. If this can be clarified, the genuinely critical character of Henry’s thought can be constituted, as capable both of protesting against its time and of proposing elements for its renewal. In this essay, I will introduce certain characteristic themes of Barbarism, in order to establish a connection between barbarism and its critique. This connection will be established through a clarification of two such radical reversals in our age; those of culture, on one hand, and psychoanalysis on the other. In order to investigate this connection, and in order to engage the general theme of a reversal, I will take a detour, in order to begin with what I will define as a forgotten overturning. (shrink)

A Fenomenologia Material de Michel Henry nos desvela o imenso domínio da vida que nos supõe outro conceito de absoluto, a saber, essa vida originária em cada cogitatio enquanto auto-afecção, onde nem a vida e tampouco o desvelado por ela são meros conceitos abstratos, mas uma realidade carnalmente passível. Este saber da vida se abre contra-redutivamente, de modo que, na passibilidade radical da vida, a partir de um sentimento que sempre ocorre na ipseidade de sua carne patética, Verbo e carne (...) permanecem desde sempre unidos enquanto começo absoluto independente de representações. Nesta medida, ir à ‘coisa mesma’ desta fenomenologia não intencional implica em descobrir o ser na transparência de sua vinda a si, absolutamente autônoma, cujo processo de fenomenalidade dispensa uma distância. Assim, Henry insiste no pathos que ego sum sem nos obrigar a passar por uma representação, graças ao primado do aparecer em sua própria aparição, no entanto, nos permanece como questão latente entender em que consiste essa vida enquanto absoluto incondicionado. Como é possível falarmos desta vida que leva a cabo a experiência de si, identificando com tal movimento? Para tanto, este trabalho tem como base central L’Essence de la Manifestation de Michel Henry que, ao nosso ver, defende como tese o devir fenomênico do ser como pura afecção de si num corpo próprio e, nesta medida, apresentar-se-ia como um bom fundamento por converter da transcendência para uma imanência pura o desvelar do próprio ser. (shrink)

O estudo que se segue, tratar-se-á, a prima facie, de uma tentativa de justificar a necessidade de Michel Henry em radicalizar o método fenomenológico a fim de conceber a dualidade visível-invisível na Imanência absoluta de um sujeito patético sem, contudo, afastar-se do campo fenomenológico. No entanto, nos será preciso entender que suas considerações se tratam de um projeto onto-fenomenológico pois, segundo o autor, é apenas submetendo toda a ontologia à fenomenologia que o desvelar do Ser é suscetível de dar-se em (...) sua plenitude. Nesta medida, espera-se com esse artigo apresentar-lhes os argumentos principais da Onto-Fenomenologia Material de Michel Henry arguindo, por sua vez, que seu projeto filosófico não se trata de metafísica e, tampouco, de mística. Em sentido oposto, mostraremos em que medida a Filosofia Material de Michel Henry deve ser considerada ontologia e seu método fenomenológico. Para tal utilizaremos como base, em especial, L’essence de la Manifestation e Phenomenologie Materielle. (shrink)

The phenomenological tradition is commonly understood as the domain of “philosophy of the subject”, and in this regard it is often criticized in contemporary thought. In respect to it, the originality of Michel Henry is to enter into this tradition by formulating to it an inverse objection: a mistake of the “historic” phenomenology is that it has not been able to conceive the subject in its own being or better, in its “interiority”. The aim of this paper is to determine (...) the meaning and scope of such criticism, the development of its consequences, not only regarding the positive concept of subjectivity but also in the sense of opening its possibilities to renew the understanding of artistic phenomenon. (shrink)

Partimos de una revisión crítica de la interpretación canónica del tema platónico del cuidado de la muerte propia como condición típica del filósofo: el Fedón no propone algo así como una “preparación a la muerte”, sino más bien una resistencia intensamente reflexiva del alma frente al proceso natural de la muerte. Entendemos que la fenomenología heterológica de Lévinas permite formalizar este vitalismo hiperbólico de raíz platónica a través de la categoría del “ser contra la muerte”, en sistemática polémica con el (...) famoso “ser para la muerte” de Heidegger. Lévinas permite una comprensión filosófica del natural “miedo a la muerte” de todo ser vivo: el permanente “aplazamiento” de la última hora da tiempo y posibilidad a un Deseo del Otro, impensable en cambio en las coordenadas del solipsismo existenciario heideggeriano. (shrink)

The paper argues that Zahavi’s defence of the self as an experiential dimension, i.e. “identified with the first-person givenness of experiential phenomena”, and of the notion of a pre-reflective minimal core self relies on an unwarranted assumption. It is assumed that awareness of the phenomenal mode of experiences of objects, i.e. what the object “feels” like for the experiencer, is comparable with, indeed entails, first-person givenness of experience. In consequence both the arguments concerning the foundational role of the pre-reflective minimal (...) core self and the explanation of the unity and identity of the self through time give rise to intractable problems. (shrink)

Este artículo se propone interrogar la relación entre sufrimiento y atención desde una perspectiva fenomenológica. A partir de este análisis intentaremos clarificar el fenómeno del sufrimiento mismo. Un fenómeno singular que ocurre de acuerdo a una saturación particular como un acontecimiento personal y dramático, y que puede ser experienciado en tanto que se impone irreversible e irrevocable. Así, cada una de estas notas constitutivas del sufrimiento revelarán la transformación y transmutación que este producen despliegue de nuestra atención, afectando la propia (...) relación con nosotros mismos, con los otros y con el mundo. Este camino interrogativo toma su impulso desde las caracterizaciones ricoeurianas del sufrimiento, entendido por el filósofo francés como la forma más vivas de consciencia de sí. (shrink)

El presente artículo busca interrogar el pathos de la vida y de la existencia, a partir del estudiode las obras de Michel Henry y de Henri Maldiney. Dicho intento de ampliar la razón recobrando ladimensión afectiva de la vida o de la existencia ha orientado a la fenomenologíahacia una reflexión profunda sobre una inmanencia absoluta de la vida o sobre la apertura hacia elacontecimiento de sentido que es propia a la existencia. De este modo, nos pregunatremos quéfenomenología se apropia mejor (...) la tarea de ampliar la razón hacia la dimensióndel sentir y de la afectividad. (shrink)

A bodily self is characterized by pre-reflective bodily self-consciousness that is.

ABSTRACTIn this paper we explore the possibility of rethinking the concept of emotional intelligence within the context of education. By developing a pedagogical dialogue with Michel Henry’s phenomenology of incarnation, we try to move beyond existing models of emotional intelligence by shifting the emphasis from the intellectual significance of emotion to a more original incarnate affectivity within intelligence, understood as lived sense-making. We claim that this ontological and ontogenetic perspective on emotion puts it at the heart of education. Yet only (...) because it evokes an understanding of education which is expressly non-functionalist: a disruptive, even dreadful event that marks the threshold and tension between what Henry terms Life and World. More than simply learning us to manage our emotions or recognize the value of experiences, emotional intelligence is about the very making of World out of Life, a Life that is at once radically subjective and communal. (shrink)

L’expression « phénoménologie de la vie » indique une visée commune entre les pensées de Michel Henry et de Bin Kimura. La « phénoménologie historique », telle que conçue par Husserl, trouve l’essence des phénomènes dans le mode d’apparaître des objets par la médiation de la différenciation temporelle. La phénoménologie de la vie saisit cette essence dans une dimension verticale, appelée « immédiateté » par Kimura, qui unit le présent caractéristique de l’être du soi avec la Vie absolue. Elle situe (...) ainsi le fondement de la temporalité dans la genèse spontanée du présent à partir de la Vie absolue. On examine d’abord ici la particularité des phénomènes (soi, monde et autrui) dans l’expérience de l’immédiateté du point de vue de la phénoménologie de la vie, puis on montre que Kimura voit dans la Vie absolue non seulement le principe de la vie, mais aussi celui de la mort. (shrink)

The recent liberation of phenomenology’s “metaphysical” word seems to us to present a twofold risk: on the one hand, that of leading us to lose in intension what they will have made us gain in extension - what exactly does the term “metaphysical” mean here, and can we even hope to provide an exact definition? On the other hand, it would convert our former reservations, which may indeed have been excessive, into a temerity that would ultimately be no less so. (...) The aim we have set ourselves here must therefore be modest: to attempt to avert this twofold risk by first equipping ourselves with a clear and unambiguous concept of what is or could legitimately be understood by the term “phenomenological metaphysics; to show then how and why phenomenology, rightly or wrongly, but without really realizing what was preventing it from doing so, has never really managed to do so; to indicate finally the question that a “phenomenological metaphysics” conforming to its concept would have to ask, and to which it would have to commit itself to answer. (shrink)

RESUMEN Este artículo propone la piel como un concepto ontológico y fenomenológico indispensable para comprender el daño y repensar la dimensión sensible de la reparación. El trabajo tiene cuatro secciones. En primer lugar, introduce la relevancia de la fenomenologia para estudiar el dafio. En segundo lugar, formula una ontologia fenomenológica de la piel a la luz de dos componentes: la heteroafección y la autoafección. En tercer lugar, aplica la ontologia de la piel a la violencia. Finalmente, en cuarto lugar, concluye (...) con una conceptualización fenomenológica del daño que permite repensar la reparación como un proceso relativo a la vida sensible. ABSTRACT This paper proposes the skin as an essential ontological and phenomenological concept to comprehend the damage and to rethink the sensible dimension of repair. The work has four sections. First of all, it introduces the relevance of phenomenology for the study of damage. In second place, it formulates a phenomenological ontology of the skin in the light of two components: the hetero-affection and the auto-affection. In third place, it applies the ontology of the skin to violence. Finally, in fourth place, this paper concludes with a phenomenological conceptualization of damage that allows to rethink the repair as a process concerning the sensible life. (shrink)

En el contexto de su crítica a la fenomenomenología husserliana Michel Henry apela a la caracterización de los errores de la perspectiva hetero-afectiva remitiéndose a sus orígenes en la tradición sintetizados en los parámetros de la “gnosis griega” y su compromiso con la racionalidad entendida como comprensión de “objetos puestos a distancia”. La revisión de los alcances de esta categoría revela, sin embargo, que existen tratamientos en el pensamiento griego que apelan a la auto-afección y la inmanencia para dar cuenta (...) de elementos que exceden la dimensión ek-stática. En este trabajo se revisa el planteo henryano para mostrar sus puntos de contacto con el estoicismo, especialmente a partir de la teoría de Hierocles a propósito de la oikeîosis. Este recorrido permitirá sugerir que entre ambos planteos existe una compatibilidad estructural que hace posible apelar a claves de interpretación similares para dar cuenta de la convivencia de mecanismos de explicación que apelan a lo auto-afectivo y lo hétero-afectivo en un conjunto coherente. (shrink)

Статтю присвячено дослідженню альтернативних можливостей інтерпретації Декартової концепції cogito: як авто-референтної структури і як авто-афекційності. Контекстом аналізу виступає трансцендентально-феноменологічний ракурс погляду на картезіанську філософію як на засновок трансцендентального мотиву. Визначено роль принципу авто-референтності в трансцендентальному дискурсі. На ґрунті розгляду перспектив тлумачення картезіанського підходу, запропонованих М. Анрі й Ж.-Л. Марйоном, виявлено моменти іррелевантності авто-афекційної настанови вимогам трансцендентального мислення і втомивовано адекватність авто-референтної моделі його засадам. Авторка доходить висновку, що, попри позірну пріоритетність авто-афекційності для трансцендентального дискурсу, пов’язану насамперед з притаманною їй радикалізацією (...) функціонального аспекту свідомості й усуненням небезпеки субстантивації cogito, закладеної в структурі авто-референтності, остання видається відповіднішою вимогам трансцендентального мислення, оскільки передбачає збереження принципу відношення-відмінності, конститутивного для трансцендентальної думки – який в умовах авто-афекційності виявляється редукованим. (shrink)

O objetivo desse estudo é apresentar a arte como ferramenta para superação da violência a partir da fenomenologia da vida. Michel Henry mostra que a vida é Energia que se impõe como uma verdadeira força e se revela a si mesma. No entanto, nos perguntamos: Por que então existe a barbárie e a violência? Por que a violência se impõe com tanta força em todos os lugares e inclusive no ambiente escolar? Sustentaremos a tese de que a vida tem seus (...) poderes, mas ela precisa se manifestar como na arte, caso contrário, cairemos no obscurantismo. Por isso, iremos considerar que o caminho que nos leva para a manifestação da vida e a superação da violência só pode ser conduzido através da educação. (shrink)

The paper first introduces the concept of implicit and explicit temporality, referring to time as pre-reflectively lived vs. consciously experienced. Implicit time is based on the constitutive synthesis of inner time consciousness on the one hand, and on the conative–affective dynamics of life on the other hand. Explicit time results from an interruption or negation of implicit time and unfolds itself in the dimensions of present, past and future. It is further shown that temporality, embodiment and intersubjectivity are closely connected: (...) While implicit temporality is characterised by tacit bodily functioning and by synchronisation with others, explicit temporality arises with states of desynchronisation, that is, of a retardation or acceleration of inner time in relation to external or social processes. These states often bring the body to awareness as an obstacle as well. On this basis, schizophrenia and melancholic depression are investigated as paradigm cases for a psychopathology of temporality. Major symptoms of schizophrenia such as thought disorder, thought insertion, hallucinations or passivity experiences may be regarded as manifesting a disturbance of the constitutive synthesis of time consciousness, closely connected with a weakening of the underlying pre-reflective self-awareness or ipseity. This results in a fragmentation of the intentional arc, a loss of self-coherence and the appearance of major self-disturbances. Depression, on the other hand, is mostly triggered by a desynchronisation from the social environment and further develops into an inhibition of the conative–affective dynamics of life. As will be shown, both mental illnesses bear witness of the close connection of temporality, embodiment and intersubjectivity. (shrink)

Mysticism and life. Religious relationship in Michel Henry’s phenomenologyThis article discusses the concept of mysticism in the phenomenology of Michel Henry, which involves the relationship of life and the living, as set against two opposing views on the connection of life to the living: Arthur Schopenhauer’s naturalistic philosophy of life and the religious doctrine of Master Eckhart. In the first approach, life is identical with the will to live, a natural force inherent to everything that is alive. In the other (...) one, life is identified with the Christian God, encompassing all individual livings and constituting the foundation for all creation existing out of him. Hermeneutic analyses carried out in the article consider those texts by Michel Henry which comment on the works of Master Eckhart and Schopenhauer and provide for his own interpretations of them. They aim to show that Henry’s thought involves the religious understanding of mysticism as pertaining to the connection of life and the living identified with the relationship of God and humans. Moreover, the mysticism of life should be distinguished from Schopenhauer’s naturalistic metaphysics of life, while its main inspiration are the Christian teachings of Master Eckhart, therefore the former may be considered as one of the interpretations of the latter. Irrespective of its Christian background, Henry’s thought can be also of interest to non‑Christians, as it presents a way of accessing life through the experience of a living body underlying self‑affectivity, largely forgotten in modern times but which can be revived by communing with art, because aesthetic experience is one of the forms of feeling one’s own being. In Henry’s thought, aesthetics, ethics and religion are closely interrelated, providing an effective remedy for the contemporary cultural crisis. (shrink)

Este trabalho pretende ressaltar o lugar singular ocupado pela fenomenologia material de Michel Henry no horizonte da fenomenologia contemporânea, confrontando-a privilegiadamente com as filosofias de Heidegger e Husserl. O projeto da fenomenologia material, adiantamos, é o de convidar a fenomenologia a repensar de novo seus fundamen-tos à luz de uma nova concepção do campo transcendental como imanência radical de um Si que se afeta a si mesmo, e constitui, por esta via, a interioridade da vida egológica.

My discussion will focus on what is arguable the main claim of Being No One: That no such things as selves exist in the world and that nobody ever was or had a self. In discussing to what extent Metzinger can be said to argue convincingly for this claim, I will also comment on his methodological use of pathology and briefly make some remarks vis-à-vis his understanding and criticism of phenomenology.

In his recent book ‘Kant and the Mind’ Andrew Brook makes a distinction between two types of selfawareness. The first type, which he calls empirical self-awareness, is an awareness of particular psychological states such as perceptions, memories, desires, bodily sensations etc. One attains this type of self-awareness simply by having particular experiences and being aware of them. To be in possession of empirical self-awareness is, in short, simply to be conscious of one’s occurrent experience. The second type of self-awareness he (...) calls apperceptive self-awareness. This type of self-awareness entails an awareness of oneself as the subject of experience. For this type of self-awareness to obtain, it would not be enough merely to be conscious of, say, an occurrent perception of a chair, one would also have to be aware that it was oneself who was perceiving the chair. And as Brook adds, when I am self-aware in this way, I am not only aware of being the subject of a single experience, but also aware of myself as the common subject of other psychological states (Brook, 1994: 55-57). I find Brook’s distinction illuminating, but it raises a question which I would like to pursue in this paper. When we speak of self-awareness, do we then necessarily also speak of a self, is there so to speak always a self involved in self-awareness, or is it rather the case, as Brook’s notion of empirical selfawareness might suggest, that there are types of self-awareness which are ‘selfless’, or to use two other related terms ‘subjectless’ or ‘non-egological’? Is self-awareness always to be understood as an awareness of a self, or can it be understood simply as the awareness which a specific experience has of itself? Ultimately, I believe an answer to these questions are important, both when it comes to an understanding of what exactly self-awareness amounts to, and also when it comes to a proper understanding of what a self is.. (shrink)

Anne Devarieux | : En allant de Maine de Biran à Louis Lavelle, nous allons d’une métaphysique de l’expérience intérieure qui définit l’être du moi comme un volo donné dans le sentiment actuel de sa puissance propre, à une ontologie déclinant les puissances plurielles du moi, à l’intérieur d’une dialectique de la puissance et de l’acte (théorie de la participation). Mais tous deux ont pensé l’intériorité comme un mouvement absolu, secret et irréductible à toute représentation. Attentif à l’évolution de la (...) pensée de Maine de Biran, Louis Lavelle semble avoir développé toutes les potentialités cachées du moi biranien. Un tel mouvement permet d’éclairer la place de Maine de Biran dans l’histoire du spiritualisme français, et de ses héritiers, qu’il s’agisse d’Henri Bergson ou de Michel Henry. | : Going from Maine de Biran to Louis Lavelle, we can feel the distance between a metaphysics of inner experience which defines the being of the ego as a volo, given in the present sense of its own power, and an ontology asserting the plural virtual powers of the ego, within a dialectic of the power and the act (theory of participation). However, both have thought interiority as an absolute and secret motion, irreducible to any representation. Attentive to the evolution of Maine de Biran’s thought, Louis Lavelle seems to have developed all the hidden potential of the Biranian theory of the self. Such a movement can illuminate the place of Biran in the history of French spiritualism, and of his heirs, whether it be Henri Bergson or Michel Henry. (shrink)

São muitas as abordagens do fenômeno religioso surgidas nos últimos dois séculos. Algumas recorrem aos métodos elaborados pelas ciências humanas, sobretudo a historiografia, a sociologia, a etnologia/antropologia, a psicologia e a fenomenologia. Outras tratam a religião numa perspectiva filosófica, como se pode ver nos grandes autores que, sobretudo a partir do século XIX, se consagraram à elaboração de uma filosofia da religião. Nas últimas décadas, com a renovação da filosofia hermenêutica, novas leituras da religião têm surgido, renovando profundamente esse campo (...) do saber. O texto aqui proposto apresenta alguns elementos da grande síntese do filósofo luxemburguês Jean Greisch, pouco conhecido no Brasil, mas cuja contribuição ao estudo da religião é original, privilegiando uma hermenêutica da passagem. Após uma breve apresentação de sua obra consagrada à filosofia da religião, serão apresentados os cinco “paradigmas” dos estudos da religião segundo ele: o especulativo, o crítico, o fenomenológico, o analítico e o hermenêutico, o último seguido pelo próprio autor. (shrink)

When read alongside the great command of Deuteronomy, ‘love the Lord your God with all your heart, mind, and strength,’ the Judeo-Christian directive to ‘love your neighbour as yourself’ is perhaps one of the most theologically and ethically charged phrases in the Bible. In these two mutually reliant commandments lies a meeting point between the divine and the human that has important implications for our understanding of the nexus between theological conceptions of love and philosophical engagement with worldly existence. This (...) point of intersection is explored in a particularly unique way in the thinking of Michel Henry and Jean-Luc Nancy. In this article, I conduct the first sustained comparative analysis of their respective philosophies, using an exploration of the role of love and affectivity in their work to better understand the philosophical opportunity represented by the commandment to love God and neighbour. (shrink)

Esta contribución elabora la concepción del “Un-zuhause-sein” en Heidegger en su relación con la experiencia del exilio, como es descripta por Mario Benedetti. En la experiencia del exilio, cuando se quiebra la familiaridad tranquilizadora con el mundo, se accede al «fenómeno más original desde el punto de vista ontológico existenciario» de la absoluta negación del estar en casa. Mientras la angustia despertada por la soledad fáctica conduce a una ruptura con el mundo cotidiano, el extrañamien-to nos desnuda y nos revela (...) al mundo en su inhospitalidad originaria. Es la angustia la que tanto abre a este modo de ser originario y propio del “ser ahí”, la que hace patente su ser-en-el-mundo, la que lo singulariza y lo aísla de los demás seres. El exilio, como experiencia paradigmática de la in-hospitalidad, demuestra que la experiencia del Un-zuhause-sein es un rasgo ontológico-existencial del Dasein. (shrink)

The present paper explores anew the question of Husserl’s metaphysics by contrasting H. Philipse and D. Zahavi’s respective position on the matter. I argue that these positions fall victim to opposing exegetical pitfalls. On the one hand, while I concur with Philipse’s general characterisation of Husserl as an ontological phenomenalist, I disagree that this implies Husserl was a subjective idealist similar to Berkeley. On the other hand, while Zahavi’s correlationist interpretation of Husserl avoids this subjective idealist interpretation, I argue that (...) it inadvertently succumbs to the realist alternative that construes the world as existing independently from subjectivity. The way out of this dilemma is to interpret Husserl as an experiential monist, where the phenomenal stream (Erlebnisstrom) is taken to be ontologically primary, by virtue of its antecedence over the subject-object or mind-world dichotomy. (shrink)

Focusing on Joyce’s use of Aristotle’s De Anima, and on Aquinas’s response to Aristotle, this essay takes, as its starting point, the recourse to two areas of enquiry in recent work on modernism: animal studies and phenomenology. In this essay we examine the intersection within Ulysses of the concept of the soul in Aristotle and Aquinas, show how this relates to questions of animality, and open the way to asking what implication the theological reflection on the soul at the centre (...) of Ulysses might have for a process of uncovering theological contents in the concept of “life” in modernist studies more generally. (shrink)

If there is such a ‘post-secular’ milieu, mindset, or thesis, it will need to furnish its own interpretation of the ‘world’ in ways distinct from those championed by the secular. Indeed an essential aspect of the ‘secular’ is how it has interpreted the ‘world’ as the ‘space, time, and age’ in which things come into presence clearly, neutrally, and obviously. This paper interprets and compares some of Heidegger’s and Henry’s specific engagements with the theme of ‘world’, and how each thinker (...) claims the world itself is presentable as a phenomenon, namely, via disclosive moods and the self-revelation of life. Since the world can appear, and its phenomenality can be presented, an inquiry into the specific, inconspicuous means by which the experiences of the world’s neutrality, clarity, and obviousness might yield phenomenological description. What presents itself as neutral is precisely what demands attention by merit of its hiddenness. (shrink)

Even a cursory glance in Die Bernauer Manuskripte über das Zeitbewusstsein makes it evident that one of Husserl’s major concerns in his 1917-18 reflections on time-consciousness was how to account for the constitution of time without giving rise to an infinite regress. Not only does Husserl constantly refer to this problem in Husserliana XXXIII – as he characteristically writes at one point “Überall drohen, scheint es, unendliche Regresse” – but he also takes care to distinguish between several different regresses. One (...) of the more troubling ones is the one that might be called the regress of foundation. It concerns the problem of how to avoid always having to presuppose yet another underlying constituting consciousness. As we will soon see, the attempt to avoid this specific regress is closely linked to the problem of how to come up with a satisfactory account of self-awareness. That Husserl himself was well aware of this link can be inferred from some of his reflections in the beginning of Husserliana XXXIII. As he writes at one point, consciousness exists, it exists as a stream, and it appears to itself as a stream. But how the stream of consciousness is capable of being conscious of itself, how it is possible and comprehensible that the very being of the stream is a form of self-consciousness, is the enduring problem of the entire treatise. In this article, I wish to take a closer look at some of Husserl’s attempts in the Bernau Manuscripts to account for time-consciousness without giving rise to an infinite regress. (shrink)

There is a long tradition in philosophy for claiming that selfhood is socially constructed and self-experience intersubjectively mediated. On many accounts, we consequently have to distinguish between being conscious or sentient and being a self. The requirements that must be met in order to qualify for the latter are higher. My aim in the following is to challenge this form of social constructivism by arguing that an account of self which disregards the fundamental structures and features of our experiential life (...) is a non-starter, and that a correct description and account of the experiential dimension must do justice to the first-person perspective and to the primitive form of self-referentiality, mineness or for-me-ness that it entails. I then consider and discuss various objections to this account, in particular the view that an endorsement of such a minimal notion of self commits one to an outdated form of Cartesianism. In the final part of the paper, I argue that the self is so multifaceted a phenomenon that various complementary accounts must be integrated if we are to do justice to its complexity. (shrink)

The purpose of this article is to show how schizophrenia, understood as a distortion of the most intimate structures of subjectivity, illustrates the nature of subjectivity as such, while at the same time how philosophical considerations may help to understand schizophrenia. More precisely, schizophrenic experiences of self-alienation seem to reflect a congealing or concretization of a form of differentiation or potential alterity implicit in the dynamic nature of subjectivity. In other words, we propose that the structure of subjectivity includes potential (...) divisions and fissures that condition the experiences of radical self-alienation seen in schizophrenia. In order to elucidate how this alterity emerges within the self in schizophrenia and in order to consider its conditions of possibility we examine the disorders of the self as described in phenomenological psychopathology. We especially use the work of the Japanese psychiatrists Mari Nagai, her teacher Bin Kimura, and the French psychiatrist Henry Ey, supplemented with clinical material from our own research. Finally, we shed light on the development of the psychotic symptoms such as hallucinations and delusions, which are understood as the expressions of a radical alterization of the self. (shrink)

En el presente trabajo nos preguntaremos por la posibilidad de elaborar una filosofía de la religión a partir de los supuestos de la fenomenología de la vida de Michel Henry, y por los senderos que esta supondría. Esta tarea nos demanda explicitar los principios base de su propuesta fenomenológica, indagar por la fidelidad del autor a dichos principios en su tematización del cristianismo y, finalmente, enunciar los caminos que se originan de esta fenomenología para una comprensión filosófica de la experiencia (...) religiosa. Tal será, entonces, la estructura de nuestro texto, que pretende situarse en el ensamble del trabajo filosófico de presupuestos Henry definido por él mismo bajo un doble aspecto: “7.a elaboración de los fundamentales que definen la duplicidad del aparecer, y la puesta en práctica de estos presupuestos en la compresión de diversos problemas o diversas filosofías”. (shrink)

En el marco de un nuevo descubrimiento de la fenomenología, este trabajo ofrece diferentes argumentos para superar la clásica interpretación de Husserl considerándolo un representante prototípico del solipsismo. En primer lugar, se refuta la interpretación mentalista de Dreyfus de la fenomenología husserliana, mostrando que su programa filosófico va más allá de la tradicional dicotomía entre internalismo y externalismo; en segundo lugar, se señalan algunas de las principales contribuciones realizadas por la fenomenología de Husserl al campo de las ciencias cognitivas y (...) a la filosofía analítica de las mentes, destacando la importancia concedida a las síntesis pasivas en la llamada fenomenología genética. In the frame of a new discovery of phenomenology, the present essay offers different arguments to overcome the classical interpretation ofHusserl considering him a prototypical solipsist. First we refute Dreyfus' mentalistic misunderstanding of Husserlian phenomenology, and show that his philosophical program is beyond the traditional dichotomy between internalism and externalism. Second, it is our aim to point out some of the fundamental contributions made by Husserl's phenomenology to the cognitive sciences and analytical philosophy of mind, especially highlighting the importance attributed to passive synthesis in his genetic phenomenology. (shrink)

Few researchers of the past made sense of the collapse of representations in the quantum domain, and looked for a new process of sense-making below the level of representations: the level of the phenomenology of perception and action; the level of the elaboration of knowledge out of experience. But some recent philosophical readings of quantum physics all point in this direction. They all recognize the fact that the quantum revolution is a revolution in our conception of knowledge. In these recent (...) readings of quantum physics, quantum states are primarily generators of probabilistic valuations. Accordingly, they should not be seen as statements about what is the case, but as statements about what each agent can reasonably expect to be the case. Three features of such non-interpretational, non-committal approaches to quantum physics strongly evoke the phenomenological epistemology. These are: their deliberately first-person stance; their suspension of judgment about a presumably external domain of objects, and subsequent redirection of attention towards the activity of constituting these objects; their perception-like conception of quantum knowledge. But beyond phenomenological epistemology, these new approaches of quantum physics also make implicit use of a phenomenological ontology. Chris Fuch’s participatory realism thus formulates a non-external variety of realism for one who is deeply immersed in reality. But participatory realism strongly resembles Merleau-Ponty’s endo-ontology, which is a phenomenological ontology for one who deeply participates in Being. This remarkable analogy is supported by Merleau-Ponty himself. Indeed, 50 years before QBism, Merleau-Ponty acknowledged the strong kinship between the status of quantum mechanics and his phenomenology of embodiment. He did so in two texts that remained unpublished until after his death: Visible and invisible, and the Lectures on Nature. The final part of this article is then devoted to a study of Merleau-Ponty’s conception of quantum physics. (shrink)

This thesis wrestles with the normativity of language, its usage and its practices while questioning the signifié-signifiant reality. A structural reading of language designs its translational practices within the source-target framework, thereby essentialising its relationship en passant: everything has meaning as long as we accept the hidden framework of a universal language. Therefore, language outlined as a system of signs is a product of transcendental considerations and consequently it renders practice into a hermeticrealm in which the distinction between eidos and (...) eidolon, right and wrong, familiar and unfamiliar, grammar and gibberish makes perfect sense and in which the translation from A to B is simply a matter of transferring identities. Linguistic power neutralises through its transcendental conditioning ephemera in life and world. We will discover that a phenomenological reading of language is open to layers which questions the dialectic setting of linguistic knowledge production. Phenomenology proposes to study life-world relationships by reducing the power of dialectical denomination to the power of gazing or to the lenses of ambiguity. Theorising language and translational practices within the phenomenological realm follows the concept of being oriented towards body-life-world while laying bare the phenomenon language. This revealing method supersedes empirical considerations since phenomenological methodology questions permanently our very own positioning. Hence, the transfer from A to B will be challenged by possibilities which are temporary: it is about a transfer zone featuring A as A’ to B or A’ in B / C. However, the phenomenological possibility reveals that the price for ephemera is tamed by the condition of its possibilities: indeed, the aporia of linguistic identity in polyvalence requires not only phenomenological brackets but also a transcendental backup. Chapter I and II study the translational practice of language and phenomenology by explaining its analysis via dynamised transcendental conditions. The disillusion of the phenomenological inquiry will be yield by radicalising phenomenological reading of language towards a phenomenographical practice of language. Chapter III goes to the extremes in exposing a language without content. The introduction of the trickster figure Narcissistgrotesque Face will be the anti-metaphor in which the grotesque line up forces us to learn bearing A with B and in which the non-content materiality of linguistic practices resemble le bas matérialisme. Not explanation, understanding and rendering things plausible is the movens for language but it is all about the spur of its enactment, its style and its story telling that renders translational practice visible. Chapter III is a performative practice in which we turn the text into texture. Translation happens then when your are perplex and the translational void enacts you and me. (shrink)

One of Michel Henry’s persistent claims has been that phenomenology is quite unlike positive sciences such as physics, chemistry, biology, history, and law. Rather than studying particular objects and phenomena phenomenology is a transcendental enterprise whose task is to disclose and analyse the structure of manifestation or appearance and its very condition of possibility.

The aim of this work is to elucidate the meaning of 'infinity' from a phenomenological perspective, especially within the framework of Husserl’s theory of knowledge and perception. In the first chapter I firstly sketch the basics of Husserl’s phenomenology of knowledge. Thereafter I delve into the questions concerning the reduction to the 'reellen Bestand', which is hold to be the ground of verification of purports in the "Logical Investigations". I then propose an interpretation of the categorial intuition as directed to (...) the laws an 'Auffassung' follows when it organizes the sensual contents related to an object. In the second chapter I briefly expound Husserl’s phenomenology of perception and I show how perception can be hold as an intentional experience. Afterwards I concentrate on the constitution of space and of thing (Ding). I show in which sense the structures of both constitutions are dependent on the sensations and kinesthesis (i.e. proprioceptions) experienced by the subject. In the third chapter I finally deal with the problem of infinity. I face some recent interpretations of Husserl’s theory of perception according to which infinity is somehow intertwined in and even intuited through thing-perception (Dingwahrnehmung). I claim that thing-perception can not be hold as an access to infinity, i.e. no thing-perception is a perception of something as infinite. Following I show how some other kinds of sensual experience can correspond to a perception of infinity. On the base of some Husserl’s manuscripts and through a brief confrontation with Kant’s Analytic of the Sublime I sustain that infinity can be sensually intuited in the senses of limitlessness and of formlessness. I then show that categorial intuition is necessary in order to constitute the meaning of mathematical infinity, i.e. an endless whole of discrete parts. In fact, the idea of such an “entity” is dependent on the capacity of grasping the law of a serial production. In the conclusion I establish that mathematical infinity is the only kind of infinity which can not find any sensual correlate. This is due to the fact that it is a meaning composed by two contradictory prescriptions: 'reach the limitless' and 'go on without an end'. I consequently argue that the idea of infinity is grounded on sensual experience and does not need any supernatural origin. (shrink)

Si la phénoménologie de Michel Henry renvoie l’humain à son ancrage dans la vie auto-affective, comment aborder dans un tel cadre philosophique deux des traits propres au vivant humain, à savoir le langage et la création littéraire? Peut-on décrire l’exposition aux mots à partir d’un langage de la vie antérieur à toute configuration linguistique et narrative, à partir d’une “Parole de la vie” qui fonde et qui accroît la capacité de “se sentir” de la vie subjective radicale? Comment aborder le (...) langage dans son intériorité pathique? Pour le dire autrement, peut-on renvoyer toute médiation visible par le langage à un espace d’immédiateté invisible où aucun signe ne se livre à la connaissance et où, cependant, les mots sont cette résonance de la vie en moi, cette reconduction par eux à mon pouvoir et à mon désir de m’éprouver moi-même comme cette subjectivité qui parle et qui raconte? (shrink)

Nowadays, scientific knowledge seems to be increasingly generated using technological methods, but also governed by technological demands and conducted by new technical ways of learning. In this paper I will analyze an effective example of this new trend in biomedical research: the Avicenna project and its “roadmap for clinical trials”. My aim is to understand what philosophical issues it arises and whether and to what extent this document provides effective responses and solutions to make its innovative challenges a concrete reality.